Movie Guide

NEW RELEASES

Facing the Music (Not rated)

Directors: Bob Connolly, Robin Anderson. With Anne Boyd and
faculty and students at the Univ. of Sydney. (89 min.)

Sterritt *** This smart Australian documentary looks at shrinking
education budgets - and their effects on teachers, students, and
society at large - through a visit to a university music department
run by a leading Australian composer who becomes increasingly
politicized as her institution sinks into deeper and deeper
deficits. Generous doses of bright-sounding music add to the movie's
appeal.

Sterritt ** An ambitious TV newswoman takes a fresh look at life
and love after a sidewalk psychic tells her she has a week to live.
This slickly produced romantic comedy takes its creaky premise down
the most predictable, sentimental pathways it can find. If the
heroine really had seven days left, she wouldn't waste it watching
stuff like this.

Sterritt *** The psychologically charged story of a 13-year-old
girl whose adolescence is complicated by sexual tensions linked with
her parents' troubled marriage. Jeffs is an unusually gifted
director, but her screenplay (based on Kirsty Gunn's novel) never
quite gets a firm grip or a fresh perspective on its coming-of-age
subject matter.

Sterritt ** Imprisoned in an asylum at the height of the French
Revolution, the aging Marquis de Sade refines his subversive
philosophy, plans his latest theatrical production, and works his
seductive wiles on an aristocrat's daughter. Auteuil is a superb
actor. Still, the real-life Sade would be dismayed to see himself
portrayed more as an eccentric old codger than the world-changing
firebrand he worked hard to be. In French with English subtitles.

Sterritt ** A young woman wanders through a series of sexual and
romantic adventures, ultimately realizing there must be more to life
than this. Based on Bennett's own experiences, the movie has no
penetrating insights to offer, but it's acted and directed in an
improvisational spirit well-suited to its ultra-low budget and
digital-video technology.

Sterritt *** A corporate lawyer and an insurance salesman become
adversaries after a highway fender-bender, sparking a day-long
ordeal of threats and counter-threats. The filmmakers meant to whip
up a high-tension thriller. What they ended up with is a
psychological satire that's quite engrossing if you regard it as an
absurdist morality tale rather than a straight-ahead suspense yarn.
It loses its bite in a last-minute happy ending that's even less
plausible than the rest of the picture, but much of the way it's a
refreshingly novel ride.

Sterritt *** Producers replace a bribe-taking TV clown (Williams)
with a straight-arrow entertainer who's shocked by the onslaughts of
greed, corruption, and violence he gets from his agent and everyone
in the kiddie-media world. …

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